


Depth of Field

by ninemoons42



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, First Kiss, Gen, Painting, Photography, Sports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-24
Updated: 2011-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:35:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's senior year and everyone loves Arthur, the student council president. Eames watches from afar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Depth of Field

  
title: Depth of Field  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
pairing: Arthur/Eames. Ariadne and Robert are here, too, and YOU get to decide if they'd make a great couple. :)  
warnings: originally written for [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/foxxcub/profile)[**foxxcub**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/foxxcub/) at [this entry](http://foxxcub.livejournal.com/715215.html). Someone else in the post said that this is one fandom where it pays to read the comments - and yeah, for some reason, we all love Inception commentfic, don't we, and/or are totally willing to push everyone into it?  
Anyway, I DID get into the spirit of the thing and I produced this fluffly piece of BBs at school and BBs with crushes and Eames as the head of the photography club. This version has been expanded a little and cleaned up. If there are any more mistakes, please feel free to take me out back and SHOOT me.  
There is much fluff, school-spirit geekery, and a bunch of random things that can happen in high school. [Don't worry, no glee club / show choir.]  
disclaimer: I don't own the original stories, series, or characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.  
summary: It's senior year and everyone loves Arthur, the student council president. Eames watches from afar.

  
Eames finished hanging the last canvas on the wall of the gallery/classroom, stood back with his head tilted consideringly to the side, and then made one more minute adjustment, before pulling out his phone and squinting at the time.

Lunchtime was almost over and he had to hurry if he wanted to make it to his European history class. He was never really any great shakes at histry; it only seemed to come alive for him if he had the freedom to reconstruct the dry accounts with photos of memorabilia or reconstructions: soldiers going over the top, performing self-coronations, sinking on the Titanic, cheering returning expeditions.

If there was one thing Eames hoped to accomplish in his last year at high school, it was for the art and photography clubs to do well, for their exhibits to be well-liked and well-attended. He wanted everyone to see Ariadne's and Robert's work, for people to maybe tell their parents to keep supporting the clubs with field trips and special teaching sessions.

Campaigns, he thought sourly, it's all just popularity contests. And then it was really time to run and he had just enough time to sprint up four floors and stagger, breathing hard, into one of the back rows of the lecture hall.

But instead of Professor Yusuf walking over to the podium there was a sudden loud burst of music from the other door and in walked - oh, god, it was Arthur, student council president Arthur Hardy, smiling and waving and looking so good even when he was carrying a silly, rainbow-painted placard that said "Support our School!"

Eames caught his breath, very quietly, and sank down in his seat, hands already crawling toward the analog SLR camera he carried around with him every day. He blessed the high windows of the lecture hall and the afternoon sunlight. With shaking hands he carefully focused on Arthur's smile, and - _click, click, click_.

Damn how the light seemed to like him. Wavy black hair parted to the left, blue-and-grey striped jumper. Clean white cuffs poking out at his wrists. Those blocky spectacles of his, which would have looked awful on anyone else. His smile, so ready and so wide there were lines around his eyes and his mouth. Those big hands of his.

Eames sighed, and put down the camera - and when he looked up, Arthur was shaking hands with the people in the row below him, was passing out pamphlets.

"Hey, hello there! Aren't you with the photography club or something?" And then Arthur was there, talking to him, talking to Eames! "Maybe you could help us spread the word about our football team, so people know to go to the game, you know, on Saturday?"

"Game?" Eames said, and mentally kicked himself in the head. "Uh, sure. Maybe I could bring in some other members and we could make a project out of it?"

"That would be pretty cool," Arthur said. "I'd love to stay - European history's my favorite subject - but we have to go now, gotta visit all the other classrooms and drum up lots of interest. See you at the game!"

"See you," Eames said, under his breath, but by then Professor Yusuf had come in, and Arthur and his smile were long since gone.

///

"You DO know this is kind of silly, Eames." Ariadne grumped as she rewound her favorite scarf around her neck. Eames had seen her unwind the thing and turn it into half a shawl. "I mean, we draw. We use our hands. And hands freeze, especially when we are out of doors on a day when it could snow."

"Shut it," Eames said, and pulled on the fingerless gloves he tended to use for outdoor shoots. Battered black leather, grey fleece. "I use my hands to work, too."

"Fingers," Robert mocked, but gently, since he, too, was carrying a camera. The difference was that he liked using a DSLR, and he was really, really good at Photoshop.

Eames preferred to get his effects the old-fashioned way, which meant he was carrying two more lenses with him.

They were all sitting in a huddle, Ariadne settled firmly between them, in one of the bleachers; Eames had staked out a space that would allow him and Robert to catch the coaches and the huddles through their lenses.

And then there was a roar as the teams jogged in, the cheerleaders began to dance and the school band began to play.

"Here come our boys!" Robert laughed, peering through his viewfinder.

And Eames aimed his camera at the school team, but he was really looking at the skinny kid trailing after the guys in the uniforms: Arthur in his school jacket, followed by the student council. They were waving flags and those silly big foam paws - the school team was the Tigers after all - and Arthur was laughing, exhilarated, easily the brightest light in the stadium.

 _Fuck this,_ Eames thought, _I look like I'm looking at the game but at least I can take pictures of him all I want, and that was exactly what he did._

Arthur blurred as he jumped up from his seat to cheer, Arthur leaning in as someone else talked to him, Arthur waving two foam paws energetically, Arthur doing the wave.

***

"You could do an entire exhibit with just this album, Eames - and before you ask," Ariadne said, quietly, "I'm dead serious, these photos are very, very good."

"Right, and if I just don't mind telling the whole school I'm arse over teakettle for him...."

"Which makes you different from everyone else HOW exactly?" Robert said. "Come on, Eames, everyone's crazy for him."

"No, guys. Thanks but no thanks. I do still have some self-respect; I won't be remembered as the creepy English stalker paparazzi git."

***

Naturally, the next thing that happened was his favorite photo from the game going missing.

Eames sighed. He had the negatives under lock and key; it would be child's play to reprint the photo. Arthur sitting calmly and watching the game while everyone jumped up and down in excitement all around him. His eyes, wide and focused. His hair falling around his face, a stray cowlick hanging near one eyebrow. His fists clenched atop his knees.

But it was annoying to lose it, just when it had been so perfect out of the chemical baths, and the other thing was, how could he have lost it? Nothing else was missing, and Ariadne and Robert swore up and down that they'd never touched it, and Eames believed them.

He was so lost in his thoughts he didn't immediately realize he was back at his locker, juggling his bag and his books and the album that he now carried everywhere with him for paranoia's sake. And it took him even longer to notice that someone had stuck a gorgeous stargazer lily in the handle. Brilliant red and white petals, yellow pollen, the fresh green of the stem.

Eames immediately put everything down and took several photos of it, a stark splash of color against the drab of the locker, and then he took it out and inhaled its sweet perfume. When he was able to put himself back together, he tucked the lily carefully inside his locker and left for his next class with a spring in his step.

***

With the school year coming to an end and graduation already on the horizon, Eames and the other yearbook committee members began spending the nights at school, sitting patient watch over the yearbook as it was put together. Ariadne being a junior, she had been inconsolable lately, since he and Robert were leaving and then splitting up: "I planned to take both of you to my prom!"

"We'll come back for it, and we'll be dressed up and we'll all have a good time. Promise," Robert had said.

Finally it was yearbook distribution day and in class after class the teachers gave up on any lectures they had planned, and simply let the seniors exchange teary-eyed hugs and signatures and scribblings.

Eames was sitting by himself in history class, looking a little stunned, at the warm inscription from Professor Yusuf - "To the boy with his head in the clouds and his feet on the ground" - when the chair next to him creaked.

"Class is done," he muttered, still distracted. "Everyone's gone on to Professor Saito's Asian lit class."

"I know; I've just snuck out of it."

And Eames knew that voice, and he snapped to attention, and - yeah, it was still Arthur, smiling, with his yearbook in one hand and an armful of stargazer lilies in the other.

"Hi," Arthur said.

"Hello," Eames said.

"These are for you."

"Thank you," Eames said, softly, and he smiled everywhere - at the flowers, at Arthur.

And then Arthur was blushing and looking away and he was offering something else, a white envelope, to Eames. "I...I owe you an apology," he said. "I took your photo; I've had it with me all this time."

"You took it?"

"Yeah. I wanted to have something that was yours."

"Um. Why? Also, you couldn't have asked?"

And Arthur laughed, a hand over his mouth. "I was an idiot, I guess; I thought you'd say no, or you'd run away screaming, or you'd faint. It gets old, when everyone reacts like that."

"This might be because you're Arthur, the guy the whole damn school loves," Eames said.

"I don't even know why they're so fascinated," Arthur said. "It's not false modesty. I just - I wanted to be just me, and, well, you see how well that went."

"Enough that I couldn't get in close to you," Eames said. Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. "Had to content myself with taking photos from wherever."

"I noticed," Arthur said. Pause. "Thank you."

"What for?"

"For this," and then there was nothing else for Eames but Arthur's mouth on his, the sweet scent of lilies surrounding them, the white envelope still in his hand, the quiet thump their yearbooks made as they slid to the floor. Soft lips pressing against him, Arthur's rough hands on his arms - and Eames put his hands in Arthur's hair, pressed forward into the kiss.


End file.
